Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/445

N. 0. URTICACEÆ. 1195

to rise from below the base of the receptacle) ; peduncle proper from 4 to lin. long. Male flowers with 3 or 4 cleft gamophyllous perianth and a single stamen. Gall flowers with a perianth like the males ; the ovary ovoid, smooth, with a short, lateral style. Fertile female flowers with gamophyllous 4-cleft perianth, the achene sub-globular, minutely tuberculate, with a hyaline, viscid, external coat, style long, lateral stigma cylindric.

This is a polymorphic species, and often presents great variety in foliage even in the same plant. (King.)

Uses : — The juice of the root of this shrub is internally administered in colic pains, and the juice of the leaves mixed with milk in dysentery. The bark of the root, which is very bitter, pulverised and mixed with coriander seed, is considered a good remedy in coughs and asthma and similar affections of the chest. (Rheede.)

Vern. : — Kâl-ambar (Guj.) ; Kharwat (Mar.); Karakarbudâ (Tel.) ; Khargas (Kan.); Irumbaruthan (Tam,)

Habitat : — Central India and the Deccan Peninsula.

A shrub or tree, all young parts very scabrous. Leaves collected about extremities of branches, alternate, petiolate, oblong-lanceolate to ovate or obovate or elliptic ; the apex blunt or acuminate ; the edges subentire, serrate, dentate or crenate in the upper three-fourths, and entire towards the rounded or blunt ; 3-nerved, primary nerves 3-5 pair, very prominent and hispid on lower surface, as are the reticulations ; the rest of the lower surface scabrid-hispid ; upper surface pretty uniformly and strongly scabrous, shortly hispid. Blade 1½-5in. long, petiole ½-lin. long, stout, stipules minute. Receptacles pedunculate, often reflexed, scabrous-hispid, globular, slightly depressed at apex, with rather prominent umbilicus. Umbilical scales erect. Male flowers numerous in part of receptacles ; perianth of 4-5 linear-lanceolate, scabrid pieces. Stamen 1. Ovary of gall-flowers ovate, lanceolate, with thick terminal style and dilated stigma ; the perianth like that of male flowers. Fertile female flowers : — with perianth of 6-7 linear-lanceolate, smooth pieces.